Lot 114Doctor Who
A ‘Tom Baker’ style multi coloured scarf knitted for charity by members of the cast, production crew and fans, approx. 29 feet in length. Estimate £300-400

Lot 115Doctor Who
A VOGIAN GUARDS costume from the episode Revenge Of The Cybermen starring Tom Baker.Estimate £500—600

Lot 127Doctor Who
A large collection of scripts for episodes from Hartnell to McCoy, some signed, episodes include, Shada, Tomb Of The Cybermen, Genesis Of The Daleles, The Daleles Master Plan and the complete four episodes of Planet The Giants. Approx 20.Estimate £1000—1500

Lot 37The Watcher full head mask
A screen-used prosthetic full head mask worn by 'The Watcher' for use in the BBCTV Doctor Who episode Logopolis, 1981.
A full prosthetic head mask identical to the one which was worn by Adrian Gibbs who played the character 'The Watcher', the nude coloured mask of synthetic material made up in layers creating a textured and unworldly overall appearance, with narrow slit eyes and mouth, and slits at the sides for the actors ears, accompanied by a letter of provenance.

FOOTNOTESProvenance:Gifted to the vendor by her aunt Dorka Nieradzik MBE - Make-up, Hair and Visual Effects Designer. Dorka was awarded the MBE in the 2004 Queen's Birthday Honours List for her services to drama. Dorka recalls; 'At the end of the episode 'Longopolis', the character of 'The Watcher' enters Tom Baker and causes him to regenerate into Peter Davidson. For this reason I designed the mask to have an embryonic form.'A proportion of the proceeds will help fund a short puppetry film due for production by the vendor in 2018. The short film, which will be the vendor's second short puppetry film, will be called 'AppleHead and Cherry'. For further info please see: www.facebook.com/AppleHeadandCherry.Estimate£1,500 - 2,500Sold for £3,500

Lot 38The Watcher face mask
A prosthetic face mask worn by 'The Watcher' for use in the BBCTV Doctor Who episode Longopolis, 1981.
A prosthetic face mask which was worn by Adrian Gibbs as 'The Watcher', the nude-coloured mask made up of layers of synthetic materials in a textured manner, with unfinished edges, bulging eyes with narrow slits, a flattened nose, and wide mouth, accompanied by a letter of provenance.

FOOTNOTESProvenance:Gifted to the vendor by her aunt Dorka Nieradzik MBE - Make-up, Hair and Visual Effects Designer. Dorka was awarded the MBE in the 2004 Queen's Birthday Honours List for her services to drama. Dorka recalls; 'This face mask was designed by myself to be laid onto Tom Baker's face during the regeneration montage, as a choice for the director to use to create the effect of his face shifting from an embryonic form into his new face as Peter Davidson.'A proportion of the proceeds will help fund a short puppetry film due for production by the vendor in 2018. The short film, which will be the vendor's second short puppetry film, will be called 'AppleHead and Cherry'. For further info please see: www.facebook.com/AppleHeadandCherry.SALEROOM NOTICESPlease note that this mask was made to be laid over Peter Davison's face, during the regeneration sequence and not worn by Adrian Gibbs as the description states.Estimate£800 - 1,200Sold for £812

Saturday, 2 September 2017

In my research into sales of Doctor Who costumes and memorabilia at historical Bonhams auctions, I don’t think I’ve seen quite so many Who-related items in a general sale before - 75 items in total, most of which are costume.

Catalogues in those days were sparsely written, often containing typing errors and misattributions. Hence you will see Sontarin (not Sontaran) and Androzanni (instead of Androzani).
Other instances cite the wrong episode titles; wrong seasons; and occasional wrong aliens!

I have therefore NOT attempted to correct any of these as it is not always possible to fathom the ambiguous nature of some of the listings.

Where possible I have used the (few) photos from the catalogue to illustrate the items, but most I have sourced images from either episodes cited, or later Bonhams auctions where it would appear these items resurfaced for sale.

As usual I have separated the items by Doctor era, and you can see the rest of the items here:

Lot 498 DR. WHO - THE AUCTION, CATALOGUE
From 11th May 1991 Sale of selected costumes from the wardrobe, 41 page catalogue with black and white illustrations, colour cover, together with a sheet of prices realised. (2) Estimate £10 - 20

Lot 503 A ‘DALEK’
A black ﬁbreglass replica Dalek with good roundels built to a very high standard, all to original Dalek modiﬁcations and dimensions. Estimate £1,750 - 2,250

Lot 504 A ‘DALEK’
A replica Dalek scratch built to a very high standard, realistically modelled in wood and ﬁnished in grey and black. Estimate £800 - 1,200

Lot 505 A ‘DALEK’
A Dalek made of ﬁbreglass/ wood/ aluminium running on castors, approximately 5ft. in height, circa 1975.Estimate £2,500 - 3,500
Thought to have been created by B.B.C. Enterprises for exhibition purposes at Blackpool/Longleat. Vendor acquired this Dalek sixteen years ago from a Radio Merseyside D.J. at a cancer charity beneﬁt; ever since then used it at many Dr. Who Conventions around the country.

Lot 505a A ‘DALEK’
Scratch-built to a high standard and realistically modelled and ﬁnished in green and black. Estimate £400 - 600

Lot 512 LONDON POLICE BOX (T.A.R.D.I.S.)
A blue London police box, complete with beacon on the top, built of wood, to the same dimensions and appearance of the B.B.C. TARDIS (Time and Relative Dimensions In Space) featured in regular episodes of Dr. Who.Estimate £2,000 - 3,000

Lot 524 ASSORTED DR. WHO ANNUALS
A collection of Dr. Who annuals including the 21st year anniversary issue, 1984 (X3), Terry Nation’s Dalek Annual, 1976 (X2) and 1978, B.B.C. TV Dr. Who Adventures in Time and Space, 1971, The Amazing World of Dr. Who, 1976, B.B.C. TV Doctor Who Special Journey Through Time, and Doctor Who and the Daleks Omnibus, 1976. (a lot) Estimate £200 - 300

NB: There are minimal photo illustrations in the catalogue. All colour images (bar lot 400) are internet sourced and as example only

Lot 377 DR. WHO
A copy of ‘Dr. Who Discovers Prehistoric Animals’, a paperback book published in 1977, in which ‘Even Dr. Who ﬁnds out things he did not knowl', signed on the title page by Tom Baker, in blue ink.Estimate £30 - 50

Lot 378 DR. WHOA model of the Dr. Who’s Tardis. approximately 9 1/2in. high, thought to have featured in many Dr. Who BBC Television episodes of the 1970's. Estimate £100 - 200

Lot 383DR. WHO/TOM BAKERA longbow by Bear, together with some black and white photographs of Tom Baker in Dr. Who costume aiming this bow. (qty.) Footnote: Thought to have been taken on location when Tom Baker was attending a private function in Dr. Who costume.Estimate £500 - 700

Lot 392 DR. WHO
A camera script for The Destructors (The Sentaran Experiment, 1974, Tom Baker), signed by John Nathian-Turner, John Leeson and Colin Jeavons, a rehearsal script for Vampire from Space (1971, Jon Pertwee), and a camera script for the Keeper of Traken (1980, Tom Baker). (qty.) Estimate £150 - 200

Lot 396 DR. WHO
A plywood replica of K-9 used for promotional purposes.Estimate £100-200

Lot 399 VARIOUS
Two unidentiﬁed heads and a green felt robe. (3) Footnote: This lot was purchased from the Limegrove Theatre in Shepherd’s Bush, when it closed down in 1991.Estimate £80 - 120

Lot 400 DR. WHO
Approximately ninety negatives and nine colour photographs thought to be location stills from ‘Robot’ (1975), ‘The Sentaran Experiment’ (1975) and ‘Terror of the Zygons’ (1976), many featuring Tom Baker as Dr. Who. (qty.) Footnote: To be sold with copyright. Whilst the seller conﬁrms that this property is sold with copyright, Bonhams can accept no liability in relation to any matters arising as a result of any imperfection in copyright given.Estimate £600 - 800

The Jacket originally had foam padding inside (quite a lot of costumes from around this time
were padded using the dreaded pink foam) .......... but this has turned to dust, on photographing the costume
the dust was still making its presence known, even though I had gentle shook it for a good few minutes.
(I have the same trouble with the Mandrel, every time you move it another pile of dust comes out)

Saturday, 29 October 2016

After last week’s grey tweed frock coat, this week I completed work on what chronologically was Tom’s next coat, the brown velvet version which debuted in Face Of Evil!

This too was a client-led project, and something I hadn’t done before so again the production time inevitably became quite drawn out.

The main challenge was to source a velvet in just the right shade of brown.

I have a couple of suppliers I go to for velvets. It’s from these that I sourced the velvets for the Sixth Doctor Frock Coat, as well as the collar of my City of Death coat.

One of my UK based supplier has over 40 colours and up till now hasn’t let me down, but for this particular coat the range of browns they stock just didn’t match the screen-worn shade I was after.

Next I looked to a manufacturer I use for corduroy and moleskin who also has a range of velvets, but again their range was too narrow to cover what I was looking for.

Next on my list was a stockist in Germany who have a good range, but it’s difficult sometimes to communicate the shade you want and the range of browns they sent still didn’t have what I was looking for. They also were a little on the heavy side, and given the fluid drape I need for the skirt part of the coat, the cloth really wasn’t suitable.

This left a final option - the various cloth and fabric shops of London’s Soho.

To be honest I don’t like to use Soho for a coats like this, as although you can sometimes find what you want, the stock isn’t repeatable and be a dead-end for future coats. When the Doctor Who costume designers find cloth here, like off-the-peg clothing used on the series, by the time you find where it came from the last of the cloth as gone and can’t be restocked.

However, I did find a couple of potential fabrics I was happy to show to the client, and sent him swatches. He wasn’t convinced and we went back and forward before agreeing that one of them could work.

Sadly though, by the time I got back to the shop my fears had come true - the last of that shade had been sold!
Despondent I looked through a couple more shops before heading home and chanced upon a PERFECT match - even better than the first choice I had sent the client.

Rather than let it slip through my fingers, I snapped up enough to make the coat, plus a second for myself, which I’ll make at a later date.

I conveyed the results of my trip back to the client and put a swatch in the post - but time was now of the essence and I needed to crack on with making the coat in time for his deadline around Halloween.

To cut the coat, I used a combination of the Eighth Doctor Night Of The Doctor coat I made, with the grey Android Invasion coat I did recently.

To be frank - having studied photos of the brown velvet frock coat - I don’t much care for it.

I feel the original was probably made in a rush and wasn’t best thought out or executed.

It has a set of waistline level pockets, but the flap are disproportionately large and look to have been hand sewn in place as an after thought. You can see the hand stitching in this screencap (see left).

Having discussed this with the client, we agreed to make the flaps large, but just pull back a little from their near comical size, so I used the pattern size of the lower pockets from the City Of Death and Android Invasion coats as a guide.

The buttons for this coat are very easy to match as they are simply self-covers buttons.
All I had to do was keep hold of some scraps of cloth left over during sewing, and took them along when I had the buttonholes sewn. The guy that does them also makes covered buttons while you wait!

The tailoring on this coat has been deliberately loose and lightweight. Where I would usually use a horse-hair or calico backing to support the cloth, I have erred on the side of a lighter weight or even a cotton pocketing fabric. This has made the the skirt of the coat hang very limp and the body is a lot looser on the the chest.

Although this doesn’t make it my best work in that regard, it’s given the coat a saggy pre-worn look I feel original had.

In hide-sight there are a couple of changes I might have made to the cut, but as it is the first time I have made this coat you can’t always 100% predict how it will turn out.

I’d love to hear what you think of the coat, as it’s taken quite a while to get to this stage!